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GNU Make vs Jenkins comparison

GNU and Jenkins are both solutions in the Build Automation category. GNU is ranked #17 with an average rating of 9.0, while Jenkins is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.2. GNU holds a 0.7% mindshare in BA, compared to Jenkins’s 10.3% mindshare. Additionally, 83% of GNU users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of Jenkins users who would recommend it.
GNU Make
Read 6 GNU Make reviews
  • 250 Views
  • 250 Comparison Views
83% willing to recommend
Jenkins
Read 92 Jenkins reviews
  • 3,555 Views
  • 3,484 Comparison Views
88% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

GNU Make and Jenkins compete in automation and build management. Jenkins has an advantage with its extensive plugin ecosystem and CI/CD capabilities.

Features: GNU Make is known for handling dependency graphs and rules efficiently. It supports static pattern rules for source compilation and integrates with third-party dependency builders. Jenkins features an extensive set of plugins, offers advanced CI/CD functionalities, and integrates with various tools, enhancing its extensibility.

Room for Improvement: GNU Make could enhance its GUI and modernize its declarative syntax to support advanced automation needs. Jenkins requires improvements in initial configuration complexity and its extensive reliance on plugins can make troubleshooting time-consuming. Better native support features could streamline workflows.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: GNU Make is easy to install, requiring minimal configuration and providing a lightweight solution. Jenkins demands more setup effort, but benefits from comprehensive documentation and community support, offering scalable orchestration suitable for large projects.

Pricing and ROI: Both GNU Make and Jenkins are open source without direct setup costs. GNU Make provides a reliable ROI for simple builds. Jenkins offers scalability and automation efficiencies, which justify potential higher initial investments in configuration and maintenance.

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To learn more, read our detailed GNU Make vs. Jenkins Report (Updated: July 2025).
Buyer's Guide
GNU Make vs. Jenkins
July 2025
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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

GNU Make
Ranking in Build Automation
17th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Jenkins
Ranking in Build Automation
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of GNU Make is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Jenkins is 10.3%, down from 12.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2561757 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhances productivity with efficient dependency handling and a straightforward setup
GNU Make is used as a build system tool. Most people don't use GNU Make directly but utilize other systems like CMake to generate Make files, which are then run by GNU Make. This is common for tasks like compiling C++ code. In the industry, AI developers, for example, use GNU Make in their work…
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Annamalai Pts - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamlined CI/CD pipelines with powerful integration and an easy setup
I use Jenkins as a CI/CD tool. We create pipelines using Jenkins, with stages for Maven builds, Docker image builds, SonarQube integration, and deploying the image to a Kubernetes cluster, AWS EKS Jenkins has made the developers' work very easy. They commit to the remote repository, and…
Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Setup is extremely straightforward."
"Makefiles are extremely easy to work with using any preferred editor. GNU Make can be run directly from the terminal, not requiring any time wasted on clicking."
"I have not encountered any scalability issues with GNU Make. It is as scalable as the project's structure is, and then some."
"The initial setup of GNU Make is straightforward."
"Full-featured syntax allows building strategies as simple or as complex as one wishes, and declarative approach fits the task really well. Wide adoption also means that everybody knows what GNU Make is and how to use it."
"GNU Make is such an essential tool that it is almost impossible to imagine working without it. Not having it, developers would probably have to resort to doing everything manually or via shell scripts."
"The simplicity of Jenkins and the evolving ecosystem of Jenkins are most valuable. Today, you do not have to write a pipeline from scratch. The library functionality of Jenkins helps you to bring all those in ready-made, and you also get the best practices for them. That is a great feature of Jenkins, and that is why it is being used significantly."
"The most valuable features are Jenkins Pipelines for ALM and full Deploy Cycle."
"It is easy to use."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its integration between different tools."
"Has a good interface, is reliable and saves time."
"We significantly reduced build times of large projects (more than 80k lines of Scala code) using build time on Jenkins as a time sample. It reduced the developer write-test-commit cycle time, and increased productivity."
"Jenkins has a lot of built-in packages and tools."
"Jenkins allows us to automate deployment, so I no longer have to do it manually. That's the primary use case. The other advantage of Jenkins is that it's open source. It was free for me to download and install. It's a product that's been in use for many years, so I can find a lot of support online for any issues that I may encounter while configuring anything for a given use case."
More Jenkins pros
 

Cons

"GNU Make does not provide traditional customer support."
"Vanilla GNU Make does not support any kind of colored output. A wrapper named colormake exists to work around this, but native (opt-in) support would be welcome."
"GNU Make requires using the Tab symbol as the first symbol of command line for execution. In some text editors this can be problematic, as they automatically insert spaces instead of tabs."
"Some kind of SaaS product would be helpful in providing organizational structure."
"Upgrading and maintaining plugins can be painful, as sometimes upgrading a plugin can break functionality of another plugin that a job is dependent on."
"The upgrades need improvement."
"The product should provide more visualization as to how many pipelines are performing and how many builds are happening. It should also integrate with Kubernetes and OpenShift."
"Jenkins can sometimes run slow, especially when restarting after a plugin installation or when returning from a pipeline view to the dashboard."
"The enterprise version is less stable than the open-source version."
"We need more licensed product integrations."
"The documentation is not helpful, as it is not user-friendly."
More Jenkins cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is no price for this product. No licensing. It’s open-source."
"GNU Make is free and open source software."
"Jenkins is a free solution, it is open source."
"It's free software with a big community behind it, which is very good."
"The solution is open source."
"We are using the free version of Jenkins. There is not a license required to use the solution because it is open-source."
"Jenkins is open-source, so it is free."
"We use the tool's open-source version which is free. There is an enterprise version which is expensive but comes with better support."
"The solution is one of the lowest costs compared to competitors."
"We are using the free version of Jenkins. There are no costs or licensing."
More Jenkins pricing and cost advice
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Comparison Review

it_user184734 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 22, 2015
I generally find TeamCity a lot more intuitive than Jenkins.
Moving to TeamCity from Jenkins At work, we’re slowly migrating from Jenkins to TeamCity in the hope of ending some of our recurring problems with continuous integration. My use of Jenkins prior to this job has been almost strictly on a personal basis, although I pretty much only use Travis…
Read full review
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GNU Make?
GNU Make is a free solution that comes with Linux, which positively impacts operational costs by eliminating licensing fees.
See all answers
What needs improvement with GNU Make?
I am not familiar enough with it to suggest any specific new features or areas for improvement. It occupies its niche well.
See all answers
What is your primary use case for GNU Make?
GNU Make is used as a build system tool. Most people don't use GNU Make directly but utilize other systems like CMake to generate Make files, which are then run by GNU Make. This is common for task...
See all answers
How does Tekton compare with Jenkins?
When you are evaluating tools for automating your own GitOps-based CI/CD workflow, it is important to keep your requirements and use cases in mind. Tekton deployment is complex and it is not very e...
See all answers
What do you like most about Jenkins?
Jenkins has been instrumental in automating our build and deployment processes.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Jenkins?
Jenkins is used in many companies to save money, especially within R&D divisions, by avoiding the expenses of proprietary tools.
See all answers
 

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Compared 14% of the time
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Compared 8% of the time
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Compared 7% of the time
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VMware Tanzu Platform vs Jenkins
Compared 2% of the time
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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Build Automation
July 2025
GNU Make reportDownload GNU Make product report
Buyer's Guide
Jenkins
August 2025
Jenkins reportDownload Jenkins product report
 

Overview

Make is a tool which controls the generation of executables and other non-source files of a program from the program's source files.
GNU

Jenkins is an award-winning application that monitors executions of repeated jobs, such as building a software project or jobs run by cron.

Jenkins
 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Airial, Clarus Financial Technology, cubetutor, Metawidget, mysocio, namma, silverpeas, Sokkva, So Rave, tagzbox
Buyer's Guide
GNU Make vs. Jenkins
July 2025
Free Report: GNU Make vs. Jenkins
Find out what your peers are saying about GNU Make vs. Jenkins and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
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